Providing the most adequate means to keep live bait fresh and ready for use by operators of fishing boats has been a problem which often-times required compromising convenience and expense. That is, devices that did this job adequately were often expensive and cumbersome, but the less expensive equipment did not perform well at all.
Also, though attracting game fish by "chumming" was desirable, this entailed inconvenience and loss of the bait when it was thrown overboard as in the conventional chumming method.
Furthermore, many bait tanks occupied valuable space in boats (particularly small ones) whereas towing of bait tanks in the water tended to limit the speed at which boats could pull them.